Focus, Potter!
by SideshowStarlet
Summary: Harry has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, making it difficult for him to learn, pay attention, and act "Normal." However, he is far from stupid. Not a parody. Begins with first year. See inside for notes.


**Summary: Harry has ADHD. This is NOT a parody fic, though I did get the idea from a very entertaining HP movie spoof on Youtube. I just wanted to see if I could write a semi-serious, yet still entertaining fic, with an ADHD Harry. **

**Just a note: Harry may come off as… slow, especially at first. But bear in mind that he's never received treatment for his ADHD, and the Dursleys don't seem like the type of people who would spend the time making sure Harry and Dudley did their homework. Also, you know that what Harry does eat at the Dursleys will be unhealthy and high in sugar, which would worsen symptoms. **

**On top of that, Harry's relatives had told him all his life that he was stupid and worthless, and, thanks to his disorder, he has the poor school performance and bad behavior to prove it, which leads to more insults from his family, which further reduces Harry's self-esteem and, in turn, his grades. So, it's like a vicious cycle. **

**For that matter, the teachers at Harry's Muggle school in canon don't seem like people who would be good at teaching a child with ADHD (I mean, they ignored the fact that Harry showed signs of abuse- malnourished, old baggy clothing, while Dudley seemed to have everything he wanted, and the fact that Dudley's parents did nothing about him bullying Harry- for his entire primary school career). So, this Harry kind of did what Dudley did, which was coast along and hoped he made it to the next grade, helped along by the fact that no teacher would want him in her classroom for two years in a row. However, he's not an idiot. **

Nine year-old Harry fidgeted in his seat as the teacher droned on and on. She sure was a boring lady. He tried to focus, but the class seemed to be in the middle of discussing (read: being lectured on) something Harry didn't have a clue about, so he gave up and stared out the window. Across the aisle, Dudley was doing much the same thing. Finally something they could agree on. Maybe if his cousin wasn't such a prick, they could form a boredom-fighting duo. Every time Ms. Thomas opened her mouth to begin one of her lectures, they could shoot her with Dudley's Nerf guns. Then, stumbling against the storm of bright orange ammunition and mouth stuffed with foam bullets, she would collapse to the floor, defeated.

Hmmm… maybe when they got home, Harry could sneak a couple of Dudley's Nerf guns and play with them in the park. Perhaps he could get other kids to play with him without Dudley around. Without his cousin around, the kids tended to be more willing to play with him, forgetting that Dudley would beat them up if they saw him near Harry. Of course, it never seemed to last too long. Either Dudley had to show his ugly mug or the group grew impatient with what they called Harry's "twitchiness" and went off to play something else.

"Twitchiness," that was a funny word. Harry didn't think he was twitchy. "Twitchy" made him think of nervous bunny rabbits. He amused himself for a second by twitching his nose like the rabbits he saw occasionally in Aunt Petunia's garden. Were they smelling things when they did that, or was that how rabbits communicated? He could get a book from the library about it, but he hated reading. Maybe he could look it up online, but that was still reading. Anyway, Dudley beat the crap out of him if he got too close to a keyboard, so that was out. Maybe he could ask somebody, but who would know the answer?

Harry mulled this over for half a minute before his attention shifted back to the window. What was that in the tree? He shifted in his seat so that he was sitting on his knees. It was difficult peering over so many heads without calling attention to himself. He was the shortest kid in the class, and Ms. Thomas had seated him as far away from the window as possible. However, Harry managed to get a good enough look at the creature and found that it was a kitten stuck in a tree. He remembered a couple months ago when one of Mrs. Figg's cats got caught in a tree. The Fire Department had to come and rescue the cat. Mrs. Figg was so happy that tears were rolling down her cheeks. She reminded Harry of how Aunt Petunia reacted that time Dudley got lost in the grocery store and…

Hey, wait a minute! What if _he _rescued the cat? True, this would rob them of the excitement of having the Fire Department show up, but it sure would be fun to get out of this boring classroom and climb that tree. Then, after he rescued the cat, he could give her to his batty babysitter!

Or, even better, he could give the cat to Mrs. Figg in exchange for being allowed to do certain things while he was in her care. Things like visiting downtown by himself or driving her car or ringing the neighbors' doorbells and running away. Mrs. Figg would probably go for that last one. She didn't seem to like her neighbors very much. She didn't even seem to like Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon very much, even though she always agreed to babysit Harry. Harry wondered why that was. How much were they paying her, anyway? Despite the fact that his aunt and uncle hated spending money on him, Harry bet it was a lot. The nicer grown-ups, like the school nurse, said that Harry was a "handful," while the meaner grownups, like Uncle Vernon, tended to scream incoherently at him until they (the grown-ups, not Harry) ran out of breath.

His mind made up, Harry raised his hand. Ms. Thomas ignored him. Harry raised his hand higher and waved it around a little. Still, his teacher paid no attention. Harry wanted to yell out his teacher's name, but the teacher had already taken him to task just this morning for speaking out without raising his hand.

"_If you speak another word out of turn, Mr. Potter," she had warned, "I'll call on your aunt, and we'll have a nice, long talk about your behavior in this classroom." Harry fell silent in the middle of his suggestion that they get a class pet and grudgingly went back to his confusing multiplication problems. His teacher had called it "simple multiplication," but Harry didn't see anything simple about it. _

_Dudley, who had been peering over Piers' shoulder to copy his best friend's math sheet, sniggered. "You too, Mr. Dursley," the teacher snapped. The snigger called the teacher's attention to Dudley's rather obvious attempt at cheating. She ordered Dudley to turn his desk sideways so that it was facing Harry, knowing that Dudley would have to be a complete idiot to cheat off his cousin. It would be like the blind leading the blind. The bored leading the bored, Harry thought. _

_Dudley filled in random numbers while Harry amused himself tapping his worn-out trainers on the ground. He glanced around the room. Everybody was diligently working on their assignment, except for him and Dudley. Dudley had finished scrawling random answers and was now making faces at Harry. Harry rolled his eyes, but could not stifle a quiet laugh. He glanced up sharply, but the teacher, absorbed with some paperwork or other, didn't notice. _

_Harry tried to focus on the first problem. 6x7. What exactly was the difference between "6x7" and "6+7?" Was multiplying the same thing as adding? After a long and difficult time in first and second grade, he could add with no problem. He tried to remember Ms. Thomas' lectures that he had only halfway paid attention to. _

_He knew that when you multiplied, you generally ended up with bigger numbers than you started out with. That sounded like adding. But then, Ms. Thomas mentioned something about the number zero eating the other number, causing the answer to be zero. Harry had drawn a picture during this part of the lecture, giving his zero fangs and evil eyes. _

_Then, he remembered another assignment where he had gotten every single question wrong. Ms. Thomas had written a big, red zero on the top of the paper. There was also a blank line where his aunt or uncle were supposed to sign. Harry didn't worry too much about that. As long as he kept Dudley from finding out and snitching, he could forge his aunt's signature and take it to school the next day without his relatives being any the wiser. _

_Smiling slightly, he began to transform his "goose-egg" into a vampire. Despite his academic ineptitude, Harry had a flair for art- any of the arts: painting, drawing, singing, dancing. He was in choir for a while, but he had gotten kicked out because he wasn't passing his classes. Harry missed it, though Uncle Vernon had been over the moon that "The Sissy Club" had kicked Harry out. _

_While he had been doodling, the boring lecture had gone on. Harry didn't hear a word. _

_Now, it looked like he was up the creek without a paddle. He looked around for problems that contained the number zero. He had at least managed to absorb that the answer to those problems should be zero, although he'd be damned if he knew why multiplication worked that way. At least he managed to get a little bit of information from Ms. Thomas's lecture before getting distracted. He usually wasn't that lucky. _

_Content that he had at least avoided another zero on one of his assignments, Harry allowed his eyes to wander the room again. Dudley was still making faces. This time, he was pulling at his ears and had his mouth open and his tongue sticking out as far as it would go. One of his eyes was closed. Harry stifled his laughter by shoving a fist in his mouth. Dudley wrinkled his nose, crossed his eyes, and put his chin on the desk. He swiped his tongue back and forth, licking his desktop. Both entertained and grossed out, Harry let out a giggle. Even though Dudley was clearly not doing this to be friendly, it was still entertaining as Hell. _

_Unfortunately, Ms. Thomas heard him this time. She marched over, snatched up both his and Dudley's papers, and awarded them both zeroes for the assignment. Harry scowled. He would definitely have to get that paper signed, as Dudley knew about this zero and would be sure to tell his parents. He couldn't even strike an "I Won't Tell If You Won't Tell" deal with Dudley, as his cousin had no motivation to hide poor grades from his parents. They always blamed Harry for "distracting" Dudley. Now, because Dudley received a zero as well, Harry would be in even more trouble. _

_Harry laid his head on the desk and scowled. It looked like Ms. Thomas would be holding another one of her parent-teacher conferences wherein Aunt Petunia insisted that Dudley was a good boy but Harry was a horrible influence. _

Desperate to get his teacher's attention before he burst out and said what was on his mind and got in trouble- yet again- for not raising his hand or talking in class or stealing candy from diabetic babies, Harry pulled himself up so that he was kneeling on his desk, hand still waving in the air.

Ms. Thomas stopped the lecture and glared over at her most troublesome pupil. "What is it now, Potter?" she asked wearily.

"May I go to the bathroom, please?" Harry asked politely, remembering all the lectures he got about politeness from both Aunt Petunia and Ms. Thomas.

Ms. Thomas arched a brow. "Is it an emergency?" she asked.

"_Yeeeeesssss!" _Harry lied desperately. Several of his classmates sniggered.

"Potter's gonna wet himself," Dudley chortled.

"That's enough, Dursley," snapped Ms. Thomas, now turning towards her second most-troublesome pupil. "Potter, hurry up, and Heaven help you if you take any detours."

Harry nodded quickly and hurried out of the room. As soon as the door closed behind him, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was so good to be out of that stuffy classroom.

Hoping the kitten was still in the tree, Harry ducked past the front office and hurried out the front doors before anyone could spot him. He sprinted around the side of the school to the tree by Ms. Thomas's classroom. Harry grinned; the kitten was still up there. Time for Operation Rescue. Then, he could bring the cat to Mrs. Figg's house, feed the lady some story about leaving school early because he was sick, and strike a deal with her: less supervision for more cats. If this worked out, he could do this all the time with his babysitter. All he would have to do is keep an eye out for stray cats. They would get a loving home, Mrs. Figg would get more felines which she was crazy over, and Harry would get to spend his Dursley-free time doing anything he wanted. Everybody wins!

Without further hesitation, Harry pulled himself up the tree with surprising ease for a boy so small. The kitten nestled in one of the higher branches, because that was just how these things went. Harry climbed even further, not the least bit unsure, as if he climbed trees and rescued kittens every day of his life.

It didn't take Harry long to reach the top branches of the tree. The cat hissed at him, but he swiftly grabbed her and held her firmly in his arms. The cat scratched and tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but Harry shushed her. All he had to do was get them both safely to the ground, and the kitten would be much happier. Maybe he could just drop her. After all, didn't kittens always land on their feet? But then again, she would run away from him as soon as she hit the ground. He thought he could probably catch her, though. He was pretty fast. Maybe he should go out for track. He couldn't do it before because the track team met at the same time as choir club. Then he remembered the reason he was no longer in the choir club was because he was failing all his classes except gym. There was no way they'd let him on the track team no matter how fast he ran. Harry thought this was stupid. After all, just because someone was good at schoolwork didn't mean they would be good at singing or playing sports.

Coming back to reality, Harry decided not to risk his babysitter bargaining chip get away. Shifting the kitten to one arm, Harry used the other arm to swing himself down from one of the tree's branches. At least that was the plan.

"Harry Potter!" a familiar voice called. Harry's heart sank. That voice spelled trouble. Hesitantly, he looked over his shoulder towards the school building. Huh. That was strange. He could have sworn he heard Ms. Thomas shouting his name, but she wasn't even in her classroom. Instead, a group of students had gathered around the window, staring at him, despite the best efforts of Miss. Mariachi, the teacher in the room next door, to hustle the children back into their seats.

The girls _ooohed _and _aaahhhed _over the kitten in Harry's arms, while Dudley and his gang smirked malevolently at Harry. Yeah, yeah, he knew he'd be in for it when Ms. Thomas came back to her classroom and Miss Mariachi told Harry's teacher what he'd been up to, but was Dudley really too dumb to realize that the rest of the class would be in trouble too for getting up and crowding up to the window while they were supposed to be doing lessons? What were they all smirking about? At least Harry had permission to be out of his seat.

Shaking his head over the stupidity of his clueless cousin, Harry swung his way down to the ground. He wondered where Ms. Thomas had gone.

Oh no.

Ms. Thomas was waiting for him on the ground at the base of the tree. Harry nearly kicked her in the face as he swung down. He hadn't meant to; he really didn't see her.

"Never in thirty years of teaching…" and so began yet another chewing-out from an authority figure. Harry suppressed a sigh. He didn't want to be the kid teachers yelled at all the time. He wanted to be "normal," though perhaps not his aunt and uncle's definition of "normal." Come on, _Dudley _was normal by their standards. No, Harry wanted to be the kind of normal boy who made good grades and was able to go out for sports and sing in the choir and make friends with his classmates and make his teachers happy and not get locked in a cupboard all the time (even though he knew how to pick the lock now and could sneak out whenever the Dursleys went to sleep). He would give anything to be a nice, normal boy who could sit quietly and learn whatever the Hell Ms. Thomas was just talking about instead of standing outside while his teacher yelled at him for the umpteenth time that day.

"Do you understand me, Potter?" Ms. Thomas demanded. Harry nodded, though he'd be damned if he knew what she was just talking about.

"And get rid of that cat!" she added. Harry sighed and reluctantly put the cat down. The kitten looked frazzled after hearing Ms. Thomas yell in its direction. As soon as its paws hit the ground, the cat fled back up the tree. Harry sighed. Some creatures were beyond help.

Ms. Thomas pulled him by the arm into the school building, still muttering angrily. Harry snuck a glance behind him towards the cat in the tree. It looked like his bargaining chip was gone until he could find another stray feline. Until then, he would be spending his days at Mrs. Figg's sitting around and looking at pictures of Snowy, Tufty, and Mr. Paws, along with the twenty-seven other cats that Mrs. Figg had owned throughout the years but were now residing in that litter-box in the sky.

Harry glared at the back of his teacher's head as they continued walking. Stupid Ms. Thomas ruined his only chance to have any fun. Now, she would be telephoning his aunt and uncle (as she always did when Harry gave her too much trouble), and Harry would spend a _fun-filled_ two weeks locked in his cupboard. Joy.

Maybe if Ms. Thomas made the class more interesting, he would be able to pay attention and learn enough to pass and keep everyone from thinking he's an idiot. If he had more fun in her classes, he would be too busy to get into trouble. He'd be sitting straight up in his desk getting all the questions right and doing the extra credit and being a model student. It was all his stupid, boring teacher's fault.

Harry wasn't quite sure how it happened. One minute, he was glaring up at the back of Ms. Thomas's head. Her hair (which was obviously a wig) was gray, which confused Harry slightly. Why on Earth would someone want a wig that made it look like she had gray hair? Didn't people want to cover up their gray hair? Also, why would anyone buy a wig that was so obviously a wig? Did Ms. Thomas think that nobody could possibly suspect a person of buying a gray-haired wig and so assume that the silver locks were her own natural hair?

However, Harry never found out the answers to these questions, and, a second later, he was _extremely _confused. The once-silver wig turned a brilliant robin's egg blue.

Harry covered his mouth to keep himself from shouting out a question or comment. He took a good look at his teacher's profile. The old lady's face wore the stern expression of a woman who held Aunt Petunia's views on the importance of being normal. Harry heard that if a child made a sour face for too long, it would stay that way. Harry often saw his Aunt Petunia making a face as if she had just swallowed a lemon. He wondered if Ms. Thomas had made the lemon face a lot when she was younger.

However it happened, the older lady always had a sour look on her face when Harry was around. This sour old lady expression did not fit with the mountain of blue hair, which even now was restyling itself from short curls to a bright blue Mohawk. She looked like a Punk rocker.

"_No more rules for the punx!"_

Harry sang the lyrics of a song about Punk rock that he enjoyed listening to. He had to sneak pocket money from Dudley to buy CD's from the store and listen to them on a CD player Dudley had discarded when a newer model came out. But, the music was worth the work.

Unfortunately, Ms. Thomas wasn't up on Punk rock, despite her new hairstyle, so she didn't get the joke.

"A month's detention, Potter, starting today. If I hear another word out of you, I'll make it for the rest of the year. Do not try my patience more than you already have."

With this threat in mind, Harry snapped his mouth shut and stayed silent, despite his teacher's brand-new, comment-worthy hairstyle. She would find out about it the moment she arrived in her classroom. That stupid Dudley could _never _keep his mouth shut.


End file.
